The present invention relates generally to high temperature superconductors and more specifically to a method of imparting magnetic flux pinning within a high temperature superconductor to improve current transport by introducing minute quantities of dopants.
The desirability of providing efficient high temperature superconductors for operation at 20° K and higher is well known. Indeed, there has been an enormous amount of experimental activity in these so called high temperature superconductors since research in the mid 1980s first demonstrated dramatic gains in raising the maximum critical transition temperatures from the 20° K range to the 90° K range.
In general, superconductors and superconducting material exhibit zero resistance when operating at temperatures below their maximum critical transition temperature. This quality of operating at zero resistance facilitates the construction and operation of highly efficient devices such as superconducting magnets, magnetic levitators, propulsion motors and magnetohydronamics, power generators, particle accelerators, microwave and infrared detectors, etc.
High temperature superconducting (HTS) generators and magnets are significantly lighter and more compact than their conventional counterparts. The development of these devices is essential to military applications requiring compact, lightweight, high power sources or compact high field magnets, especially ground mobile, airborne and naval applications. The high temperature superconducting coated conductor can be used to make the coil windings in HTS generators as well as the HTS magnet windings. As such, long lengths of the YBCO coated conductor with high current transport in a magnetic field are necessary for effective use in these applications.